In Praise of the Untidy

 Yes, I know.  My garden's a mess.  Rather colorful now, with the neighbor's maples ablaze and my Monkshood exploding in radiant blueness, but it sure wouldn't win any prizes for tidiness.  And that's exactly the way I like it.  More importantly, that's the way the wee creatures like it:  those micro-insects that munch away underneath the unraked leaves, turning them into nourishing mulch and drawing new nutrients into the soil; the various larvae that burrow into the dead flower stalks where they'll spend the winter and then serve as food for baby birds next spring; and the wintering birds that will feast on the seeds of spent asters and goldenrods and sunflowers, whose stalks I won't be cutting down until spring.  My garden won't be featured in Better Homes and Gardens, that's for sure, but it does meet the standards the National Wildlife Federation sets for establishing a Certified Wildlife Habitat.  I even have a plaque to prove it.  (Your garden can meet those criteria, too.  Just go to their website to learn the easy instructions.)

Since my Certified Wildlife Habitat pretty much takes care of itself, I'm free to go visit Mother Nature's gardens more often, and today I went out to the Gick Farm section of the Wilton Wildlife Preserve and Park.   I love the many muted colors of various grasses that thrive in the sandy soil of the oak/pine savannah habitat here.

The trails also move through a conifer woods, where the dim understory is brightened by the golden leaves of many baby beeches.   When I look around, I can find only the dark trunks of mature White Pines and not a single silvery trunk of a mature American Beech.  How do these little ones get here?

This patch of Black Raspberry puts on quite a show of dazzling red each autumn.

The Hazelnut shrubs have all shed their leaves by now, the better to see the little greenish male catkins.  These catkins will hang on the twigs all winter before expanding to shed their pollen next spring, when itsy-bitsy red female flowers will emerge to receive that pollen.

I kept seeing these tiny fuzzy blue dots wafting about in the air and finally managed to capture one in my hand.   Remember that fluffy white clump of Wooly Alder Aphids I pictured a few posts back?  This is the winged form of those same aphids. 

When the wingless aphids have depleted the resources of the alder twig they are feeding on, they will sprout wings to go in search of fresh twigs.  Somehow they must shed quite a bit of that long-stranded wooliness, since all that remains is a trace of fuzziness on its tiny rear.  Wooly Alder Aphids are not considered to be serious pests of alder trees, since they only weaken a few twigs at a time.  I'm glad to know that, so that I may more freely delight in their absolute adorableness.

Indian Summer Idyll

It was short but sweet, this stretch of balmy weather, with soft warm air and an autumn sun pouring down its slanting golden light.  The forecasts call for blustery rain tomorrow, more bluster for Friday with maybe some snow, so I'm glad I dropped everything to spend the past few days outdoors, either on foot or afloat.  Monday's paddle on the Hudson was followed on Tuesday afternoon by a walk around Moreau Lake, its silvery water still as glass, reflecting the mountains and sky.

Although a thin cloud cover filled the sky by the time I reached the far shore of the lake,  the richly red blueberry bushes glowed as if lit by a light of their own.

Wouldn't they make a beautiful wallpaper pattern?

To complement that wallpaper, perhaps a sofa upholstered in green velvet the same shade as that on this fungus.

I don't know any other insect this beautiful baby blue color with such a fluffy little fanny.  This is the winged form of those Wooly Alder Aphids I found clustered on an alder twig along the river.

The sky was as blue as that aphid's back when I slipped my canoe into the Hudson today, entering the water behind a sheltering island, where the breeze that ruffled the open river never touched the glassy surface back here.

My little boat moved as silently as a snake, as I wound my way around rocky promontories and into the quiet coves that form the shoreline along this part of the river.

I found the same stand of coppery understory beeches I photographed some years ago, and try as I might, I could not reproduce that photograph (shown below).   The sunlight today created too many stark shadows, so I couldn't achieve the same diffuse glow of my original photo, which remains one of my very favorites.

I found these speckled Red Oak leaves enchanting, as they floated over sky-blue water and above some pretty little underwater plants with green leaves and tiny pink flowers.

What plant could this be, that blooms underwater?  It sure looks like some kind of Smartweed, but I don't know of any Smartweed species that flowers while actually submerged under several inches of water.  Water Smartweed blooms can be inundated in times of flood, but mostly their flowers protrude above the surface.  These were growing quite happily down under the water, and they were not evident in this cove during the summer.

This rocky promontory I call Picnic Point, since several of its boulders have nice flat surfaces for holding a picnic lunch.  Also, those two blazing red shrubs provide handfuls of juicy sweet blueberries during the summer.

I was curious to see if I could find the seed pods of Great St. Johnswort, a rather unusual flower that  grows on one of the islands along this stretch, and nowhere else that I know of.  Sure enough, there they were, right where I found the blooming flowers last summer.  The fat pods had split open already, so I'm guessing the seeds have been spilled.  Let's hope they find a congenial spot to sprout.  I did pick one pod that still had some tiny flecks inside, and I plan to give it to someone who might cultivate the seeds and perhaps increase the population of this beautiful and increasingly rare flower.  (To see a photo of this flower in bloom, click here to go to my post for July 25.)

Late Fall Along the River

The Hudson gleamed silver under a pearl-gray sky when I slipped my canoe into its quiet water this morning for what may be my final paddle of the season.  But maybe not.  I am very reluctant to store my boat away for the winter, so long as the river's beauty still beckons.  Here was the view today from the boat launch site along Spier Falls Road in Moreau.  The beeches and oaks still hold their leaves, turning the forested mountainsides into a crazy quilt of colors.

Despite several snowfalls and many frosty mornings,  I had to get back on the river at least one more time, to look for these amazing creatures that cling to the alders leaning over the water.  These are Wooly Alder Aphids, their "fur" a white waxy substance extruded from their tiny bodies.  Yes, they do suck the sap from the alder twigs, but they never occur in numbers large enough to do real damage to the trees.  I found only three small colonies today along a half-mile stretch of the Hudson.

Except for the beeches and oaks, most trees have shed their leaves by now.  This is true for American Hornbeams as well, but their clusters of winged seeds still dangled from the branches.

The seed pods of Hop Hornbeams also still clung to the trees, dangling like ornaments over the water.

Witch Hazel has shed its leaves but not its flowers, which today were unfurling like yellow stars against the dark green background of conifers.

One of my destinations today was a cluster of three small islands that lie just upstream from the boat launch site.   I have my own names for them -- Birch, Azalea, and Sweet Fern -- indicating the preponderance of plants that grow on each.

I would guess it's obvious why I called one of these islands Birch.   The one I'm standing on is Azalea Island, named for the many Early Azalea shrubs that bloom here in May, scenting the air with their sweet fragrance.  As these rosy-red shrubs reveal, I could have called it Blueberry Island, too, except blueberries and huckleberries grow profusely on all three islands.

One shrub of Highbush Blueberry was especially vivid today.

Sweet Fern Island lies just upstream from Azalea Island, across a narrow rock-filled channel.

I noticed the Sweet Fern had already sprouted the catkins that will winter over to bloom in the spring.

Bright-yellow Meadowsweet provided a stunning contrast to the rich red of the Silky Dogwood that surrounded it.

What a charming little cluster of Wintergreen, set off so prettily by a green mosaic of lichens and mosses!    I find it somehow reassuring to think that, even as winter closes in,  these little plants will all keep their vivid colors under the snow,  to greet us again with their beauty unchanged come spring.